After a week without a hearing because of Covid-19, the interrogations of the accused continued on Tuesday, January 25, with Muhammad Usman. For the prosecution, this Pakistani who traveled from Syria to Europe with a co-defendant, Adel Haddadi, and the two future Iraqi suicide bombers at the Stade de France, was to be part of the commandos. But they were arrested and detained in Greece in October 2015, before finally being arrested in Austria, a month after the attacks.
The Answers from Muhammad Usman, in Urdu interspersed with a few sentences in French, are repetitive, often evasive this Tuesday, January 25 at the Paris courthouse. The accused, who denies the past as an artificer for a terrorist group attributed to him by Pakistani intelligence, claims to have studied in a madrasa until a recruiter, ” who had a knack for turning people’s brains he says, persuades him via internet to join the Islamic State organization in Syria.
“ I stayed at home, I went to the mosque, that’s all »
But once there and then in Iraq, ” nothing “. ” You do thousands of kilometers and you do nothing? the president wonders. “ I stayed at home, I went to the mosque, that’s all Usman argues.
“ I’m not going to go back to this ten times, but you have to be logical. They bring you in from Pakistan and you just read and pray? “Is annoyed the president, who tries:” You admitted having fought for a month in Fallujah. » « It’s not true, I stayed there for a few days, I did nothing and I returned to Raqqa “replies the accused.
” And in Raqqa, what do you do? “. ” Nothing “, maintains Usman, who ends up recognizing a training of “ two days with a Kalashnikov.
” I didn’t think it would be such a big attack »
And then there is this mission entrusted to him. A mission ” martyrdom “, he had admitted during the investigation. A ” violent action “, he nuances today, specifying that he has “ never wanted to die “and finally accepted” to take revenge only after he was shown children killed in bombings attributed to France.
His reaction when he learned from Austria of the attacks in Paris? “ I was surprised, so I abandoned the mission. » « How could you have been surprised, and why did you not then return home “, chokes the president. ” I didn’t think it would be such a big attack, I didn’t know anything “, repeats Muhammad Usman.
► To find : all our articles on the trial of the attacks of November 13